Ransom (7 page)

“Who am I supposed to be?” Ransom asked.

“Keith Richards.”

“Not bad. A few days ago I was Michael Landon—you know, Little Joe—and that really pissed me off.”

“You gaijin all look the same, man. Have something to drink.”

“Can't do it.”

“Karate?”

“Four hours tomorrow. If I'm lucky I'll have enough energy after practice to kick-start my bike.”

Ransom bought Kano a drink to take back for his second set. It seemed time to go home. Already he was getting tense about tomorrow's practice. Night practice ran for a couple of hours at most, but Sunday was an endurance contest, four hours on asphalt in the sun. He should go home and sleep. As long as he stayed here, though, there was something in between him and practice. But the longer he stayed, the more practice began to infiltrate his attention, and the less sleep he would have to sustain him.

Saturday I go out to play.
Wake up Sunday morning, Lord,
I get on my knees and I pray.

Five weeks ago Sunday Ito had kicked Ransom in the balls. He lay on the asphalt doubled over, choking and gasping for breath. He left the bike in the parking lot, and Yamada gave him a ride home, where he lay down on the
tatami without unrolling the futon. Then he got up and puked in the sink. For two days he was down and still felt waves of nausea the third. When he returned to practice on Wednesday night, the sensei asked where he had been. Ransom had been in the dojo long enough to feel that he did not want to say he had been hurt. He said he had had to go to Tokyo on business. The sensei asked why he hadn't been told. He took for granted proprietorship of his disciple's schedules. Work did not take precedence, although as an excuse it had greater validity than pain or injury, in which the sensei seemed not to believe. Fortunately, the sensei didn't ask what business a part-time English conversation teacher would have in Tokyo.

Miles came over from his table. “They think you're Keith Richards.”

“I know.”

“I wouldn't stand for that.”

“Why not?”

“That is one sorry-looking dude.”

“Girls and boys of many ages would disagree.”

“Do you know how ugly Keith Richards is? Keith Richards is so ugly, if he fell into a well you'd be pumping ugly for a month. Speaking of ugly, you haven't seen DeVito?”

“I doubt we will.”

Miles squinted in the direction of the door. “Don't look now but here comes the vanguard of the revolution.”

Yukiko sat down on the stool beside Ransom's. Her hair was cut very short, and she wore new, steel-rimmed glasses: the Trotsky look. She worked hard at being unattractive.

“Well, howdy, Yukiko,” Miles said. “Was that you I saw on the news hijacking a 747? The stocking mask didn't do you justice.”

“Maybe I should wear a cowboy hat. Are you still selling them in your little shop?” she said. Miles and Yukiko had a long-standing feud. Yukiko seemed to hold Miles personally responsible for the fate of the American Indians.

“I keep hoping you'll come in and buy a pair of spurs or something, but I haven't seen you around in a while,” Miles said. “Where you been—summer camp in Beirut? Outward Bound in Irkutsk?”

“None of your business.”

“Terrific to see you again,” Miles said, moving off.

Yukiko turned to Ransom. “I was hoping I wouldn't see you here. Just because I was hoping you had started to use your time constructively. Or that you had gone home.”

“Home. What's
home
? Home on the electric range? Where the buffalo roam? Where the heart is? Where you hang your hat? The buffalo are all in zoos, and nobody wears hats any more, which makes it difficult to locate this place—home.”

“Please don't try to entertain me.”

They had met shortly after Ransom arrived in Japan. She worked as a clerk in a bookstore and spent the rest of her time marching, organizing and handing out leaflets. Yukiko had studied at Berkeley for three years in the late sixties, where she was big in the student movement. Their first date was a protest march against the American military presence in Japan, organized by the Red Army Faction at Kyoto University. Yukiko was mysterious about
her affiliation with this group, although Ransom suspected she was not as involved as she wished to be. She was unequivocal in her views, however, advocating socialist revolution. American imperialism and the programmed complacency of the masses were the main obstacles. Ransom was not unsympathetic to this view. His vague sense of disgust with his homeland had certain identifiable political components. In the march, he held a banner which he couldn't read. The other marchers were very polite to him. Many wanted to shake his hand. Yukiko told him later of the rumor that he was Tom Hayden.

For three months they conducted an uneasy liaison. Yukiko could never quite forgive Ransom for being American. Ransom could not quite buy into her program, although when he first arrived in Japan he was desperate to attach himself somewhere, and would have liked to believe in a system that would relieve him of his own confusion. He had once fought for C.O. status back when Vietnam was still an issue, although the draft had already ended and everyone pointed out to him that it was just a formality. He wanted to make a stand, but no one was interested.

Yukiko ordered a Coke and asked Ransom why it was that gaijin were inevitably attracted to all the quaint and reactionary aspects of Japanese culture. “Like the martial arts.”

“I'm sure you have a theory.”

“You know,” she said, “I could never understand the route you took between my place and yours. It seemed roundabout. Then I figured out that you were avoiding the McDonald's on Kawaramachi-Imadegawa. It spoiled
your idealized Japanese vista—pagodas and misty mountains.”

Ransom didn't choose to argue the point. “What are you doing here, anyway? This isn't exactly your scene.”

“I have an appointment.”

“You mean a date?”

“It's none of your business what I mean.”

She looked around significantly, then saw who she was looking for—Carl Digger, investigative journalist. He discreetly beckoned her over, and she merely nodded to Ransom as she was leaving.

Yukiko was a thorough bore, but then, so was Buffalo Rome. Ransom was angry at himself for not having gone home hours before, for having had an absurd affair, and now an absurd non-conversation with this would-be Madam Mao. Everybody in this place had a shtick, himself included. Suddenly his life felt like a shabby waste, as if a paper screen had been pulled back to reveal a vast landscape of pain and regret.

He ordered a scotch and drank it off. Without saying goodbye to anyone he headed out. The narc, at his post by the door, stopped him. “Do you know where I can buy some marijuana, man?”

“Sure.”

“Groovy. Where?”

“Thailand.”

Outside were some fifty bikes, Ransom's Honda 350 among them. He was putting on his helmet when he heard his name called. Marilyn was walking up the street on high heels, holding her long coat closed in front to conceal her skimpy cabaret togs.

“I was afraid I wouldn't find you.”

“That's nothing to be afraid of.”

“I tried to call you.”

“I don't have a phone.” Ransom fingered his keys.

“I know. Listen, we have to talk.”

“You talk, I'll listen.”

“Could we go someplace for a drink? Not here.”

“I'm tired, Marilyn. I've got to get home.” He threw his leg over the seat and unlocked his handlebars.

“It's about Miles.”

“If you're feeling guilty about screwing Miles, I commend you, but I am not in the mood to commiserate.”

“It's about his motorcycle. I think I know who did it.”

“Join the club.”

“It's not who you think. Can't we go somewhere?”

“I've got to go home.” Ransom put his key in the ignition.

“It was yakuza,” Marilyn said.

“Yakuza? Why would the yakuza demolish Miles's bike? That's a great idea, Marilyn.”

A group of Japanese students emerged from Buffalo Rome. Two of them were supporting a third, who was moaning and comatose.

Ransom asked if he was okay.

Just drunk
, they said. They rolled off down the street as a unit.

“It's my fiancé,” Marilyn said. “He's yakuza.”

“What fiancé?”

A few blocks over was an all-night donut shop. Ransom gave Marilyn the spare helmet and waited while she arranged herself on the seat behind him. She asked if she
could put her arms around him. “Sure,” he said, “but it's only three blocks.” A beetle of some kind was riding the tachometer. Ransom tried to brush it away, but discovered that the beetle had somehow gotten inside the tach.

Dismounting, Marilyn ran one of her stockings.

At the door of Mr. Donut she said, “I'm not going to use the word
yakuza
and don't you either. Okay?”

Ransom agreed without much conviction. After they ordered coffee, she told her story. He knew she worked in a cabaret, and figured that gangsters weren't exactly uninterested in nightclubs, so nothing she said amazed him. He just wondered how serious this was for Miles.

She said she would spare him the whole trip, but she was in a refugee camp in Thailand, Samut Prakan, just south of Bangkok, when a group of Japanese businessmen came through, posing as journalists. She had a pretty good idea of what they were, but her options were few and this was no time to be choosy. She was among several women singled out for interviews. She had a good singing voice and a repertoire of American songs, and they seemed to like the way she looked. They asked her if she would be interested in working in Japan. They would arrange the necessary papers and visas.

They came for her at night, and the hurried, secretive departure led her to suspect that no visas or papers were involved. They made the last leg of the trip from Korea in the hold of a ship and disembarked at night. The girls, about fifteen in all, were hustled into the back of a truck and dropped off at various towns and cities along the way. She had seen two of the girls since then. One was working in a Turkish bath; the other looked wasted and wouldn't
even acknowledge her. Marilyn was lucky—one of the head men liked her. She was placed in one of the best clubs in Kyoto, and her duties were aboveboard. The man put her up in a nice apartment and began to visit her with flowers. He was decent to her, but was violently jealous. A few months back he began mentioning marriage.

She lit a new cigarette and sipped at her coffee. “He had me followed. He found out about Miles.”

“You think he wrecked Miles's bike?”

“His men. He doesn't do anything himself. He's an oyabun.”

“You're sleeping with a goddamned oyabun?”

She put her fingers to her lips. “Please, not so loud.” Then she said, “It's better than sleeping with every man who has the price.”

Ransom didn't know what to think. “Why are you telling me?”

“I don't want Miles to know. If he finds out he'll do something stupid. I thought maybe you could help me.”

“How?”

“That's what I thought you could help me decide.”

“There's always seppuku.”

“What's that?”

“Ritual suicide. How do you talk to this guy? Your Japanese isn't too swift, is it?”

“I know you don't like me but I thought you'd want to help Miles.”

“Is this fiancé of yours apt to hurt Miles?”

“I don't know.”

“Miles almost deserves to get his head bashed but he's
got a wife and a kid on the way. No doubt you're worried sick about them.”

“Please, Ransom. I'm not even sleeping with Miles, in case you were wondering.”

“Fine. There's your answer. Say Miles is just a friend.”

“He won't believe it. He's convinced.”

Ransom didn't really believe it himself. “Why don't you tell him he has the wrong guy?”

“Then he will want to know who is the right guy.”

Ransom didn't want to think about this now. It seemed improbable and far away. He was still rattled by his lost evening at Buffalo Rome, and very soon he would be sweating his way through practice. But Marilyn was probably right to keep it from Miles, whose ax handle could land him in deep trouble. As little as he liked Marilyn, he was pleased that she had come to him first. If she was telling the truth, she was in a hard spot, and had no one else to help her.

“Well, tell the oyabun it's me. Tell him I'm the one you've been seeing. Don't come right out with it or he'll never believe you. Let him threaten and cajole for a while.”

“But then he'll come after you.”

“Better me than Miles. I'll think of something.” Ransom didn't have a plan, but he had his reasons. His first thought was to protect Miles, who had more to lose than he did, but what grew on him was the challenge.

He put Marilyn in a cab and gave her the number of the coffee shop. They had agreed to meet at the Miyako Hotel at five the next day; he made her promise she wouldn't talk to Miles in the meantime.

The Chinese sat at their own table. They ate different food, their faces buried in deep bowls, chopsticks waving in front of their heads like antennae. The children sat on their mothers' laps, tipping their heads back to receive morsels from the fat, boatlike spoons. The rich smells of their food filled the galley. At the third-class table Ransom ate overcooked food without taste or smell, the Hong Kong version of British cuisine. This morning it had been cold vulcanized eggs and limp toast, tonight a piece of untanned leather with gravy, flaccid gray beans, instant mashed potatoes, grilled tomato garnish. Ransom's fellow diners included an English schoolteacher on her way to a posting in Hong Kong, a quiet family of Indian Sikhs, and an American hippie whose girlfriend had not once left their cabin, being afflicted with dysentery, the progress of which her boyfriend faithfully reported.